Robonaut 2's Space Shuttle Trip is a Small Step for Robot Kind

We sent a humanoid into space, but the most important robot innovations are still happening in more mundane places.

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Stuffed inside the Space Shuttle Discovery like so much luggage is the rather impressive Robonaut 2. It's not the first robot in space. The shuttle's large cargo bay Canadarm Robotic Arm is a robot and it's been in space for almost 30 years. The helmeted, dexterous Robonaut is, however, space's first Humanoid. Not that this means Robonaut 2 will get to do much on the shuttle or in its final destination, the International Space Stationat least for a while. In spite of this, the very idea of an android in space or doing anything that might be considered "for humans only" excites, well, humans.

Androids have been quite busy these days. In addition to heading off to space, they're turning up in marathons and playing instruments better than most humans I know. It all sounds pretty exciting, but the reality of robotic development is far more mundane. The legless Robonaut 2, for example, won't be doing much of anything on the space station. It'll be on a platform and spend most of its time submitting to tests that measure how it handled the rigors of space flight and if it can acclimate itself to the space station's zero-gravity environment. Robonaut will eventually get legs, and if it survives in space it could very well be the always-awake, every-helpful space android we dreamed of. I wonder if astronauts raised on a steady diet of films like The Stepford Wives, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Forbidden Planet will sleep with one eye open. Perhaps they'll rechristen Robonaut, CP3-O and completely embrace the bot. By the way, Robonaut 2 is tweeting from space, but the Twitter activity is obviously coming from NASA engineers and not the robot.

This week we also learned that a team of Japanese robots are competing in a 26.2 mile marathon. I know, you're imaging ruggedized robots traversing the difficult terrain of some barren, acrid desert landscape. Well, you can stop right there. These robots are only about a foot tall and are running around a tiny in-door track (as far as I know, they're still running right now). Most of them resemble the robots you build from mail-away kits. One of the competing robots is equipped with a camera. I tried to watch but soon became bored with the near total lack of movement.

The one robotic feat that did impress me, was Toyota's two instrument-playing robots. These gleaming, white androids are about four feet tall, have all their limbs and play really, really well. I've seen violin-plying bots before, though this Toyota bot appeared more accomplished. It was the other robot, though, that really blew me away. Its trumpet playing would have made Dizzy Gillespie smile. But how does it do it?
When I was young, I played an instrument called the baritone. It's like a tuba, but the horn part points straight up instead of at the audience. To play a wind instrument like this, you need to make a raspberry with your lipsnot a loose one mind you, but tight and sharp. That awful sound goes through the horn's tubes and comes out the other side as sweet melody. As far as I know, robots do not have lips, so how does Toyota's robot do this?

Actually, they do have lips. The robots, developed in 2005, have "artificial lips." According to a Toyota press release, these lips "move with the same finesse as human lips, which, together with robots' hands, enables the robots to play trumpets like humans do." I like that Toyota calls that raspberry motion "finesse." Sadly, there are no close-up videos of these lips in action.
Though it may seem that way, Toyota isn't working on all these robots to create the ultimate automaton band. In reality, Japan has been working on mobile and dexterous robots for years to assist its rapidly aging population. The humanoid looks of such robots are designed not to entertain, but to ensure that people feel comfortable around the androids that might someday live with us in our homes.

The more you study robotic development, the more you learn that this is a common theme, robots designed to help the elderly and physically challenged. Honda's ASIMO, which can run without falling down (much), isn't being developed to run a marathon. Early on, Honda executives explained that "future" ASIMO robots might be used to assist the elderly and disabled. Aside from ASIMO's occasional U.S. tours, though, it spends most of its time greeting visitors at Toyota's offices in Japan.

Robonaut, which has been in development at least as long as ASIMO or the musical Toyota bots is, at least, not expected to assist granny in walking downstairs. Instead, when its legs arrive, it could assist astronauts in experiments, space station repairs or playing Parcheesi (okay, I made that last one up). However, while the astronauts will probably relate better to the mobile Robonaut than the stationary, platform-based one, tomorrow's most helpful bots may not look like humans at all.

Most of us have heard of, seen or maybe own one of the common household robots: The iRobot Roomba robot vacuum. Like other robot innovations I've seen in the last decade, this Frisbee-shaped floor cleaner features almost no human characteristics at all. Even the more impressive robotic advancements like Honda's UX-3 Personal Mobility Device have more in common with abstract art than they do your average man or woman. The UX-3, for instance, looks like a 25-inch-high figure eight, but acts like a smart unicycle: sit on it and lean a bit and it will send you cruising around a room at up to three miles per hour. Another one of Honda's robots, the Bodyweight Assist looks like an intelligent seat. It's actually an exoskeleton for the legs and could help those with weak limbs or back pain stay upright, mobile and on the job.

Honda doesn't have a timeline for delivering any of these robotic innovations to the market, but it's obvious to me that despite the anthropomorphized automatons running laps, playing music and floating in space, the real future of robotics will most likely be found in far more mundane designs and places.

A 25-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance Ulanoff is the former Editor in Chief of PCMag.com.
Lance Ulanoff has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases, ?on line? meant ?waiting? and CPU speeds were measured in single-digit megahertz. He?s traveled the globe to report on a vast array of consumer and business technology.
While a digital veteran, Lance spent his early years writing for newspapers and magazines. He?s been online since 1996 and ran Web sites for three national publications: HomePC, Windows Magazine...
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